FATHER GEEK here with some serious shit to lay on you film fans out there. It concerns the finger pointing, blame laying, surrounding the catastrophe in Colorado the other day and the panicked crys for censureship of media and tighter control of various aspects of our lifes by government. I thought I’d give you readers the point of view of a 54 year old father of two. Some how I’ve managed to raise two pretty decent, well-balanced young people in this chaotic world we live in. I accomplished this without much income and as a single parent for 15 of their years. They attended public schools (Harry was an outsider in a mostly red-neck shit-kicker high school and Dannie’s HS was a polarized innercity hellhole) and while I’ve given them a background in most of the world’s religions we have not participated in any organized church. Both my kids (Harry and his sister Dannie) have a strong sense of self-worth, a strict personal moral code, and vehement recognition of the value of loyalty. In addition they love Horror, Science Fiction, Action, and Crime Drama films; they’ve grownup playing every video game from Pong to Doom and beyond; they’ve surfed the NET for hours and hours nearly every week of their lives (Harry got his 1st computer 18 years ago and Dannie’s never known a home without one); they’ve both gone through periods where they have embraced the Gothic look (Harry’s favorite coat is still a full-length black leather trenchcoat and Dannie seldom wears any color other than black); they’ve both had run-ins with drugs and booze, and have rejected them except for the most moderate of alcohol use. I tell you this so you will better know where I’m coming from later in this exposition of what has become increasingly a common American tragedy.
At this point let me state as clearly as I can that what happened in Coloado last week is appalling, and inexcusable, it defies all logic, it should turn the stomachs of all who hear of it, and I feel deeply for the parents and friends of all the victims who were killed or wounded by these two young madmen’s guns. I have a fairly strong and resolute opinion on were the blame rests for this calamity, but before I get to that I would like to give you some information on my background that may add a little weight to that estimation.
I grewup in the gang-ridden Southwest side of San Antonio in the 1950’s the son of a career military NCO father and a hard-working housewife mother. I was the oldest of 3 children, 2 boys with a sister between us, 12 years seperated my brother and me. I watched every Horror, War, and Crime movie produced from 1952 till 63 when I graduated from high school and entered college. At that time I wanted to get a law degree and join the FBI as some sort of specialist in criminal behavior, a profiler in today’s jargon. By the middle of my junior year at the University of Texas I had acquired 36 hours of Sociology, most of it in Juvenile Delinquency and Social Psychology classes as well as 18 hours of Cultural Anthropology and 15 hours of Psychology. My particular interest area rested on the question, “Why do kids from seemingly great families, with plenty of money and even social position turn to violent crime?” Thru 23 seperate courses I studied the issue, researching the problem in books and studies by some of the greatest minds in the field. I later took 2 courses in Propaganda, then finished a major in Advertising and finally 2 more majors were completed in History and Radio-Television-Film. I wanted to find out how masses of people could be motivated to take action or inaction, I wanted to see if an individual could be moved by subtle guileful external means to take actions he or she was not already predisposed to do. After finishing 186 hours of college credit in 7 years of higher education I went to work behind the scenes in the political arena on the state and national level for a couple of years in the Nixon era, long enough to become totally disgusted with the process. Harry’s mom and I then formed a high-octane, mind-blowing psychedelic lightshow performance group and shot 16mm films of rockgroups and dancers for clubs around Texas for 2 1/2 years. Finally came the years of dealing memorabilia, promoting film festivals & collector shows, and creating & selling various objects du arte. Well that was longer than I intended, but I had to cover alot of ground, I feel its important to know who is talking to you on a subject as important as the one I’m going to cover today. Thanks for bearing with me.
First off, as horrifying as this most recent massacre at a public school was, it was not nearly the worst such event in America this century. That occurred in 1927 at a small town school when over 38 students, teachers and the principal were killed by rifle fire and homemade bomb blasts, there was even a car blown up in that parking lot too. 1927, long before the Internet or Anarchist Cookbook existed; long before any video game existed; long before any type of Rock n Roll existed; long before TV violence or even television existed; even before color and sound motion pictures. As terrifying as a multiple killing like this is, it is not unique to this decade or even this century. John Brown’s followers and their foes massacred whole towns in Kansas and Missouri in the years before the Civil War; Bluebeard, and Jack the Ripper killed wantonly in the Victorian era; the Haymarket massacre of the 19 teens or was it the 20’s is still considered by many to be a blite on our history. Nor is senseless murder by bright young men from well-to-do families anything new or unusal; Leopold and Leob, young genius sons of Chicago millionaires killed for the pure fun of it in the 1920’s; Straight A student Charles Whitman (a scout who worked at Camp Tom Wooten’s Rifle Range with my father) climbed the University of Texas tower and mowed-down more students than these Colorado boys back in 1966. All of these events, and many, many more occured before Internet chat rooms, video games, punk rock, and the current wave of violent TV & Cinema ever came about. As for the long back trenchcoats worn by last weeks killers; Jesse James’ Gang wore them on every robbery in the 1870’s & 80’s, Australia’s infamous highwayman Ned Kelly wore a long black duster over his armor in the last century, Jack the Ripper wore a long black coat as did nearly all the notorious gangsters of the 20’s, 30’s, and 40’s, and of course there’s the Nazi SS and their black leather trenchcoats; all these chose this style long before MATRIX was even dreamed of. Oh yeah, millions of peaceful, law-abiding citizens have worn these coats also.
The point of all of this? Simply the circumstances of the sad, depraved act of last week have occured over and over throughout history, and hate it as we do this kind of horror will occur in the future. Young men have been massacring each other since the 1st caveman fashioned a club and smashed his rival’s brains out. Millions died in fights, ambushes, feuds and bloodbaths long before the discovery of gunpower. As cold as it may sound in light of the recent incident the per capita death rate from senseless violence is lower now than at any time this century, murder rates are dropping everywhere. Of course Littleton is the exception and the fear, anger, and sadness they feel there is real and total. It is something that no parent, no friend should ever have to contend with, but it has happened before and more than likely it will happen again even if all video games were outlawed, and comic books banned, and TV shows censured, even if motion pictures were strickly policed, and all children are dressed alike. Probably even if handguns were banned outright (all the fatal wounds last week were caused by the 2 shotguns, both of which were 25 + years old according to police). The problem here in America is deeper than what we play, read, watch and listen to, or even the availability of firearms. BASKETBALL DIARIES was a very popular movie all over the world, as was RAMBO, TERMINATOR, SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, DIRTY HARRY, DAWN OF THE DEAD, BODY HEAT, TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, HALLOWEEN, FRIDAY THE 13, and hundreds of others yet England has 50 homicides for every 20,000 we have while reading the same best sellers, playing the same video games, experiencing the same films, listening to the same music and yes even surfing the same NET. Japan, Germany, Switzerland (with a gun in every house), and all of Scandinavia while embracing the same pop culture icons we do have very small violent crime rates. This is one time that the media is not the real issue.
Well FATHER GEEK what is the problem with America’s youth? I can only offer up my carefully studied opinion. One drawn from a lifetime interest in this very subject. I can give you only a measured thoughtful point of view garnered from over 30 years working in close proximity to the popular culture industries of this country, from Rock n Roll to Movies to the NET. I feel there is a serious lack of adult leadership in our country. I mean real, caring, worthy leadership; real family parenting, religious leaders that youth can take seriously, sports heros worthy of our children’s respect, business leaders that care about more than the bottom line, movie and rock stars that set the good example,teachers that care more about teaching than that next pay raise, and political leaders that we can trust and look up to.
Do you realize what kind of school Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold frequented. They wore swastikas to school and glorified Hitler in the classroom and yet none of their teachers did anything to stop it. In a class last year they turned in a video project that showed themselves shooting jocks in the school’s halls and yet their teachers and supervisors did nothing. They talked in the library and cafeteria about bomb making and kill ratios yet no administrator or monitors moved to do a thing about it. They some how smuggled a very large, heavy bomb into the school yet no one was on the ball enough to notice. These kids had parents with plenty of money ($400,000 houses, one of the boys drove a BMW) yet greed drove both parents to work leaving little real quality time for their sons. Oh they went to public events, but thats not parenting, thats keeping up with the Jones. Yeah they thought they loved their kids, but how much time did they really spend with them, say in the boy’s room. Couldn’t have been too much, bomb making materials were in plain sight in their rooms, a sawed off shotgun barrel decorated one of the boy’s dressers, a diary with months of planning for the massacre lay in plain sight, their computer hard drives held gigs of hatemail, bombplans, and sick & twisted writings. Yeah these parents really really cared. Their kids drop in and out of school, they get arrested for breaking into cars, they use their homes as a bomb factory and their attentive parents never supect a thing, they never check out the brat’s diary, computers, or bedrooms. Speaking of the arrest, they were convicted but never spent a day in jail or reform school or juvenile detention. Do you know another student’s parent complained 8 times to the police that Harris had threaten his son, twice he appeared at the sheriff’s office in person to file the complaint, he even gave that duty bound cops 15 pages of Harris’ computer hate mail about his son to backup his accusation, including the following;”You all better hide in your houses because I’m coming for everyone and I will shoot to kill and I will kill everything.” Yet the community loving, caring police did nothing, nothing at all.
I’ll tell you what these twisted little brats needed, and it wasn’t nonjudgemental bullshit, it wasn’t heaps of egomaniacal crap, it wasn’t as President Clinton said, “We must teach them to express their anger with words...” No it was none of that. Their problem wasn’t a failure to assert themselves. It was a insufficiency of self-control. These two warped boys, like too many youth today lived lifes full of adults that don’t do their jobs, don’t lead by example, don’t set goals and limits, don’t compel regulations and restrictions. They lived lifes full of adults they couldn’t take seriously, adults whose lifes appeared as jokes to them. They lived their lifes full of adults that have never made it clear that particular types of behavior by any one, youth or adult, will just not be sanctioned. Their problem was their real world, not their fantasy one.
